What Matters the Most
by MISS.SUNNYBAUDELAIRE
Summary: Sally shares Percy's struggles with school and self-confidence as she tries to help him find something that he can be proud of doing.


**This is just a little oneshot about Percy and his mom that I wrote a few months ago. I found a picture on deviantart with 400 prompts, and I decided to give it a try! I don't know if I'll be doing all of them, but I'm going to try! X)**

**This was the first prompt: Violin.**

**It's not the main thing in this oneshot, but it did give me an idea for a story, which was basically the point.**

**Hope you like it! :)**

What Matters the Most

Sally Jackson knew from the day that Percy was born that he wasn't going to be an ordinary child, but that didn't stop her from hoping. By the time he was a year old, he struggled against his mother to swim in the bathtub. By the age of two, he was practicing holding his breath underwater, each time being longer than the previous one. These things surprised Sally, as they would surprise any mother, but she took comfort in the fat that Percy was a son of the sea god, meaning water could never hurt the boy.

But the ADHD and monsters that came with being a demigod might.

"Miss Jackson," said the principal of Rosnok Elementary School, "it seems that your son has trouble paying attention in class. It's almost as if he refuses."

Sally laughed. "_My _Percy? He always pays attention to me. I'd say he has a good attention span."

The principal raised an eyebrow and nodded his head toward the chair next to Miss Jackson. She turned her head to see her five-year-old son kicking his short legs as high as they would go as he banged his head on the back of his chair with his tongue sticking out. He was also making a noise that sounded something like, "Um, num, num, mum…"

Sally looked back at the principal and faked a smile before turning back to her son, tapping his shoulder and whispering, "Stop or we won't go to the beach this weekend."

He immediately stopped and sat as still as a statue, his eyes wide as if he were imagining that awful scenario of not visiting the beach that weekend.

"Okay, he doesn't have the best attention span," Sally continued, "but he's a little boy! Most kindergartners are hard to keep under control. All they want to do is play."

The principal nodded. "This may be so, but most kindergartners eventually respond to their teacher's instructions, whereas Percy doesn't respond at all. I have reports from his teacher that he is constantly pushing the other kids into what he calls 'play fighting' with him.

"I apologize, Sir, but he's never meant any harm—"

"Today he got into a real fight with one of the boys in his class."

Sally's eyes grew wide. She turned to her son with one eyebrow raised. "Percy, is this true?" she asked with an edge in her usually calm voice.

Percy sat upright and began arguing. "He started it, Mommy! He jumped on me and tried to bite me, and he scratched me with one of his long claws. See?" Percy pulled his right arm out of his jacket and showed the claw marks on his skin to his mother.

Sally gripped Percy's arm and studied the scratches. "_Claws_?" Sally asked, astonished that Percy was using such a word to describe a child's fingernails. She ran a finger gently over one of the red scratches. "You were bleeding, Percy! Why didn't you tell someone? Why did you put your jacket over it?"

Percy shrugged. "I was cold, and the teacher was mad at me. She felt sorry for the monster."

The principal sighed and shook his head. "Percy's convinced that the boy was a monster. He claims the boy had wings claws, and sharp teeth. It is apparent that your son has quite the imagination."

"He did have claws!" Percy shouted, jumping off the chair. "He could fly, and his teeth could have bit my arm off!"

"Sit back down, Percy," Sally said, pulling her son back in his chair. "Did he hurt you anywhere else?"

"Luckily, a few of our teachers stepped in before the fight could get out of hand," the principal said.

"It was already out of hand!" Sally yelled, showing the principal the three long scratches on his arm. "Look at his arm!"

The principal looked surprised. "This wasn't brought to my attention."

"That's because your teachers weren't 'paying attention'," Sally said, her rude tone clear.

The principal picked up the telephone on his desk. "I am very sorry, Miss Jackson. I'll have a nurse look at it right away." When he hung up the phone, he said, "Bottom line, Miss Jackson, Percy needs to learn how to behave. He's here to learn, not to pick fights."

"But he said the other boy started it!" Sally argued.

"He started it, but I finished it," Percy said, smiling proudly.

"Maybe this wasn't his fault, but that doesn't excuse his behavior," the principle said. "We don't tolerate actions like those of Percy's at Rosnok Elementary School. If these problems persist, I'm afraid Percy will have to be expelled from this school."

For a moment, the three of them were silent.

"Mommy," Percy said, tugging on his mother's sleeve, "what does ex-pel mean?"

Instead of answering her son, she said to the principal, "I don't think that will be necessary. Thank you for your time." With that, Sally took Percy's tiny hand in her larger one and led him out of the office. They ran into the nurse in the hallway leading to the principal's office, and she quickly bandaged Percy's arm for him.

As Sally and Percy were walking to the parking lot, Percy asked, "Mommy, am I in trouble?"

Sally shook her head. "No, but you have to learn to behave yourself in class. I want you to listen to your teachers and learn from them. Understand?"

Percy nodded. "Okay. Mommy, I'm sorry for getting in a fight. He was just being really mean to me. I couldn't help kicking his butt." As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he covered his mouth with both hands and said from behind them, "Sorry! I didn't mean to say the 'b' word!"

Sally looked down at her little boy with tears in her eyes. His father said this would happen. He said that nearby monsters would sense him and try to kill him. The only place in the world that was safe for him was…not with his mother. He needed to be at the place where the kids were like him.

Well, Sally refused to believe that Percy needed to be there because she refused to believe that he couldn't be a normal kid and she would find a way to make him perfectly safe with her.

"Percy, how do you feel about moving?"

Percy gasped and began jumping up and down, filled with excitement. "No more Ronoks! No more Ronoks!" he cheered and then he spit on the pavement.

Three years later, two dark-haired boys got into a fist fight at the apartment of Sally Jackson and her new husband Gabe Ugliano.

"He said we were poor," said a now eight year old Percy, sitting on the living room couch in front of his mom and step-dad with his arms crossed and a deep frown on his face. "We're not poor. Are we?"

Sally sat next to him and stroked his dark hair. "We're not poor, we just don't have a lot of money—"

"A big thanks to you, kid," Gabe sneered. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't so broke."

Percy clenched his fists and started to stand to advance on Gabe, but Sally held him back. "Gabe," she said, "dinner's on the table. Why don't you get started?"

He snorted, and with one last glare at Percy, he stomped off towards the kitchen.

Percy crossed his arms again and lowered his gaze to the floor. "I hate my life," he muttered.

Sally's heart stopped. Her eyes grew watery, and she wrapped an arm around Percy's shoulders. "No, Percy, please don't say things like that."

"But it's true!" Percy shouted, shoving her arm away and standing up to face her. "None of the kids at school like me because I'm weird but I can't help that I can't sit still! And then I can't read as well as the others kids, and Gabe _hates_ me, Mom!"

"_Percy_!"

"_Mom_!" Percy shouted louder than his mother. Then, in a quieter voice, he added, "I want a new life."

Sally stood up and held Percy close to her chest. She stroked his hair gently and whispered soothing words to calm his tears. Her heart hurt knowing that her little boy felt so negative about his life.

Her eyes drifted to the table, and she saw the letter she read earlier from the school, and she thought it might help Percy.

A week later, Percy came home with the violin.

"I'm not sure I can do this, Mom," Percy said, putting his violin on the couch. "I'm not very good."

"Of course you can do it," Sally smiled reassuringly. "Everyone has a way of expressing their feelings and letting out their anger. You can take advantage of the school's free violin lessons and see if it's right for you."

"That's the thing, Mom," Percy said. "I don't think it's right for me."

Sally put one hand on each of her son's shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. "Did you _really _try, Percy?"

He nodded.

"Did you try one hundred percent?"

He paused, and then he shook his head.

"Well, when you give it one hundred percent, and you still don't like it, then you can stop. But for now, think how great you'll feel once you start to get really good!"

"I will, Mom."

Another week passed by, and Percy was practicing the violin as hard as he could, and he put all his feelings into it, one hundred percent. He actually put so much feeling into it that when he hit another sharp wrong note, the water in the sink that Sally was using to wash the dishes splashed out and soaked most of the kitchen.

Percy stepped into the kitchen, violin in one hand and bow in the other, his eyes wide at the mess. "Mom?"

"Percy," said a very soaked Sally, "do you know if the violin is for you yet?"

Percy nodded. "The violin feels weird against my neck, and the teacher makes me put my fingers in weird spots, and the notes are hard to read too."

"Okay," Sally said. "Let's find something else, then."

It wasn't long after that when they discovered that Percy was dyslexic.

They were sitting on his bed together when Percy asked her, "Mom, why am I so weird?"

"You're not weird, Percy," Sally said, putting her arm around him. "You're just special. Do you hear me? You're special."

Percy shrugged. "I guess."

Things weren't looking for up for Percy. Sally knew she had to find something for him—something that would make him happy.

Finding something for Percy over the next two years was tough, with his ADHD acting up and his getting expelled from school happening again. Finally, in the school Percy attended for the fifth grade, there was a swim team.

"Mom, I did it! I made the swim team!" exclaimed the ten-year-old Percy with wet hair bounding through the apartment.

"You _made_ something?" Gabe laughed. "You have _got _to be lying."

"I'm not lying!" Percy argued. Turning back to his mother, he said, "I really did make the team, Mom!"

"I know; I believe you!" Sally exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear as she pulled him into a bone crushing hug. She led him away from his stepfather so they could talk without interruptions. "I'm so proud of you, Percy!" She was more than just proud of him. She could see the pure happiness in his eyes because of the fact that he finally found something he was really good at. Her heart warmed up at the thought of things finally looking up for him.

Percy participated in, and excelled in, a total of five swim meets before he was kicked out of the school and the swim team after having an accident that involved a revolutionary war cannon and a school bus.

"Yancy Academy is for _troubled_ kids, Mom. I'm _not _troubled."

"I'm running out of choices, Percy!" Sally yelled out in exasperation. "There are only so many schools in Manhattan!"

"Well, I'm sorry for putting you through so much trouble!" Percy yelled back. "I guess I am a troubled kid."

Sally looked at her son and saw the depression in his eyes. "Hey." She said, pushing his chin up gently with two fingers so he would look her in the eye. "You're not troubled. You're just different. Think of it as a school for _different_ kids, all right?"

"But I don't _want _to be different, Mom," he said quietly.

"Please, Percy," Sally said softly giving him a small reassuring smile. "Just give it a try. For me?"

"Okay, I'll try."

And he did try. He gave one hundred percent. As the end of the school year neared, they were sure he had succeeded…until the field trip.

Needless to say, Sally was heartbroken. Not because her son had gotten kicked out of school again, but because of what she had let happen to him. She felt selfish for trying to keep Percy at home with her when he would have been much safer at camp. If she had only brought him there in the first place, then he never would have had problems at school, or problems with monsters sent from Hell.

The thing that surprised her?

Percy wasn't even the smallest bit afraid.

He did his best to train hard at camp, and took amazing responsibility on quests that would seem too dangerous for any boy his age. But Percy wasn't like any boy. He was different. He was special. He gave more than one hundred percent in any way he could to save his mother, Olympus, and over the years, Western civilization, and the world. Sally was worried about Percy more than now with such a dangerous life he was living, but a part of her knew that she had nothing to be afraid of because Percy would always be coming back home to her, whether it be with someone who was half goat, had one eye, or had a goddess for a mother.

It's safe to say that Percy wasn't a normal kid, and he was never completely safe. However, it's also safe to say that when Sally looked into the eyes of her sixteen year old son as he entered the apartment holding hands with one best friend, and closely followed by two other, she knew he was truly happy.

And that's what mattered the most.

**Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it at least a little bit. Please review with what you thought! If there was something specific you liked, or if there was something that could've been done better, let me know in a review! :)**

**;)**


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